Proper exposure

[Jeffm73]

I do a lot of bird photography, and not always at the most optimal time of day.

I spot meter, and while my subject tends to come out fine, my skies are totally blown. Is there anything that I can do to maintain some type of color, besides putting in another sky, without losing any detail in the main subject?

I should also mention, that I shoot RAW, aperture priority, and a +1- 1 1/3 exposure compensation. By doing so, I can pull out much more detail in the main subject. Perhaps it's just a trade off?

Hope that makes sense

 

[Big Mike]

With a single exposure, you can't really do much. It's the subject that is important and if the exposure for the subject is good...anything too far away from that will be lost.

However, there are things you can do to increase the dynamic range of the final product. With landscape shots, you could bracket your shots and combine them with software. This is often called HDR (High Dynamic Range) or just Increased Dynamic Range. It's not so easy with moving subjects, because subsequent exposures may not match up perfectly.

What you can do, it to create bracketed images by processing the RAW files more than once and combining the resulting images

 

[Jeffm73]

Thanks Mike,

I hadn't thought of combining the same exposure twice.

I'll give that a try.

 

[TBaraki]

Are you shooting with a polarizer filter? That'll help darken the skies when shooting in certain direction.